Boxed copies of APB came with 50 hours of play time, but were on sale until just hours before the closure of the game was announced, rendering users unable to get the time they have paid for regardless of whether they bought extra time on top of that or not.

Publisher Electronic Arts is stepping up in Realtime Worlds' place, however. EA is said to be offering discount vouchers and free EA games to players who have voiced disappointment about the closure of APB after less than three months, report users of the Steam forums.

Begbies Traynor, the administrators now handling Realtime Worlds, has told customers to return to their points of sale if they are unhappy with the situation, according to Gamasutra.

"Customers should revert to the entity from which they bought the game in respect of their entitlement to any refund," the firm said.

Steam has already made its position clear however, with Valve flatly refusing to offer any refund or compensation at this time.

"As with most software products, we do not offer refunds or exchanges for purchases made online as outlined in the software license," said an official statement.

If you're feeling nostalgic or want to know more about why the game failed then you can check out our APB review for more info.